


Roped and Thrown

by esteefee



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: First Time, M/M, SGA Saturday Prompt Challenge, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 22:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/pseuds/esteefee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mama, get the hammer, there's a fly on Papa's head.<br/>I've been roped and thrown by Jesus in the Holy Ghost corral.<br/>I fell in a pile of you and got love all over me,<br/>But who bit the wart off Grandma's nose?</p><p>For the <a href="http://sga-saturday.livejournal.com/tag/week%20%2377-79%3A%20white">White</a> prompt at sga_saturday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roped and Thrown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheafrotherdon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/gifts).



> ...who requested an unexpected kiss.
> 
> WARNING: Baby's first songfic.

_"I think you just like having a girlfriend," Jennifer said, looking apologetic, but also determined. "And I liked having the smartest guy in the city be my boyfriend."_

_"Well, but that's—we can work with that, right?" Rodney heard himself whining and winced. "I mean, we're compatible."_

_"But that's just it, Rodney." Jenn sounded a little exasperated. "Don't you want more? I know I don't want people saying 'Boy, they sure look compatible!' at my wedding."_

_Wedding. Oh, dear God._

_"You may have a point."_

:::

"It was a mutual decision," Rodney said later in his quarters, two beers in and a third in hand.

John gave him a sympathetic look. "If you say so, buddy."

"I am. I am saying so." Rodney gestured, flinging a little beer as he did so. "It was a mutually agreed-upon, mutually beneficial-type decision." 

"All right, all right. You're both as happy as clams," John said. "So how come I'm the one paying for the beer?" 

"It's your duty as-as my...my wingman!" Rodney finished triumphantly. 

"Wingman." Sheppard's tongue poked out against his cheek.

"Fine, fine," Rodney muttered, "I suppose by the most literal definition I'm your 'wingman' in the field, but metaphorically-speaking—"

"Yeah, all right. I got your six." John lifted his beer. "Wimmin. Who needs 'em." 

"That's the spirit." Rodney smashed cans with him. "Nothing but trouble, right?"

John eyed him, grinning in that way that usually spelled 'suicide run,' and Rodney steeled himself. For what, he wasn't exactly sure, but it certainly wasn't for Sheppard to break into song.

John's voice was low and gravely, in tune but too harsh to be entirely pleasant. The melody was a country song with the most ridiculous lyrics Rodney had ever heard in his life, and he was already smiling against his will when John got to the chorus, belting out, "Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Goodbye." 

Rodney was enjoying it in spite himself, and had had enough beer to join in on the chorus the second time 'round. Then John changed tunes, singing, "How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?" and Rodney started laughing soundlessly and didn't stop until John was half way through "Still Miss You Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better." 

"'So now I’ve got you in my sights and if you’d just be still/I promise not to miss you, as you top that hill,'" John paused to grab and open a couple more beers, and Rodney took a sip of his, the coolness easing his aching throat. He hadn't laughed this hard in quite a while.

"Dear God, that is some terrible music." 

John saluted him with his can. "Good 'ol white country blues." 

"'I'm not the only chicken on the roost!'" Rodney crooned, and John grinned. 

"Now you're getting it." John lay down on Rodney's bed and rested his beer on his stomach, then tilted his head back at the ceiling and grunted out, "'In the garbage disposal of your dreams I’ve been ground up, dear/On the river of your plans I’m up the creek. Up the elevator of your future I’ve been shafted/On the calendar of your events I’m last week.'"

"Oh, dear sweet Jesus."

Sheppard just grinned. "'I’ve been washed down the sink of your conscious/In the theater of your love I lost my part. And now you say you’ve got me out of your conscience." John flung out his arms. "I’ve been flushed from the bathroom of your heart.'"

"Don't tell me—"

"Yep. Mr. Johnny Cash, ladies and gentlemen."

"He was a true artiste." Rodney felt himself grinning foolishly.

"He sure was." John's eyes were gleaming, catching Rodney's, and suddenly Rodney was reminded of why he tried to avoid drinking too many beers in John's company. 

John blinked, and then he rolled off the bed to stand up, the beer still in his hand. "You feeling better?" 

Startled by the sudden move, Rodney nodded slowly.

"Then I guess my work here is done." John drank back the last of his beer and tossed the empty can into the garbage. "Get some sleep, Rodney."

"I suppose." He was too drunk to code, that was for sure. Thank God his auto-lockout would engage after too many typos per minute. 

Standing, he shadowed Sheppard to the door. In spite of his words, John seemed hesitant to leave, and lingered there for a long moment, studying Rodney's face.

"All right. You're okay," John said, and then, to Rodney utter astonishment, leaned forward and brushed a kiss against Rodney's lips.

Before Rodney could react in any way, John had swiped the door open and ducked out.

And was gone.

:::

It was the beer.

No, it was the country music.

No, it was some sort of comforting gesture intended to reinforce Rodney's sense of desirability. 

No, it was definitely the beer.

Rodney tossed sleepless on his bed for over four hours that night trying to make sense of John Sheppard kissing him goodnight. 

He failed. 

But he wasn't just going to forget it happened, regardless of what Sheppard wanted. It was too huge for that.

In any event, it had handily distracted him from his breakup with Jennifer.

:::

He'd half expected Sheppard to avoid him, but there he was at their jumper maintenance meeting as scheduled, looking his normal, scruffy-haired self. Well, maybe a bit too relaxed as he slouched against the console, as if he had to put too much effort into it.

"I'm late, I know," Rodney said, "I don't want to hear it," and John grunted something back and slid into the pilot seat.

"What's on the docket?" John asked, as if he hadn't scheduled the work meeting weeks ago.

"Jumpers three and four today. Both had rough landings recently, no thanks to you."

"Hey, can I help it if the wraith don't particularly like us?" John sounded a little more relaxed, but after he pulled up the HUD he froze suddenly and turned, not quite meeting Rodney's eyes. "Listen."

"Yes?" Rodney's pulse jumped a few notches. "What?" he added when John didn't speak.

"So, I—yeah, I shouldn't have—I'm an asshole. Sorry."

"What? Why?" _No take backs,_ Rodney wanted to yell, but bit his lip.

"I know she broke your heart, shot your dog, stole your truck," John said, one side of his mouth curling up. He rubbed his palm on his BDU pants, looking awkward. "So, anyway, forget about it for now. But that was me calling dibs. For when you're ready. All right?"

"Oh, thank God." 

John finally turned then and looked at Rodney, eyebrows going up to his hairline. 

"I thought you were going to take it back, you moron."

A grin lit John's face. "Nah. No take backs."

Rodney could barely breathe. "All right then. I'll keep it under advisement."

"You do that." John's neck was red.

"I will."

John flicked the console and brought up the diagnostics.

"Lead on, McKay."

"That is so old."

:::

Maybe it was the prospect of having John interested in him, or maybe it was the fact Jennifer was right all along, and he hadn't really been in love with her as much as the idea of her, but Rodney found his achy, breaky heart didn't so much hurt as get annoyed, late at night, when he left the labs and instead of going to her quarters he had to go back to his cold, lonely bed.

He found himself ticked off at her, and as he poked at the feeling like a sore tooth, he realized it was mostly because he hated being wrong about why. 

He did miss things. He missed sleeping next to her. He loved her soft hair. He liked her laugh, and the fact she helped drag him out of his work mindset. 

He wasn't sure that was love, though.

He liked the way people looked at the two of them together, but that made him wonder if he liked making other men jealous of his beautiful young girlfriend, or if he just liked having validation he was lovable, the idea of which made him depressed.

Then he remembered John's lips brushing over his, and forgot about the rest. Because his best friend in the whole world had kissed him.

Nothing else seemed as immediate, as real. And that was just terrifying.

:::

"We should do something interesting to them," Ronon said. He pulled out his second-biggest knife and started examining it. He still had one hand on the councilor he had captured.

Teyla gave Ronon a quelling look, but Rodney agreed. They'd tried to put Rodney in a giant cooking pot. Albeit for show, apparently as a gag to frighten foreigners who dared to come in trade without bearing expensive gifts to grease the appropriate palms, as was customary, but still. A cooking pot.

John scratched his head and gave Rodney a sideways grin. "I say we poke 'em in the eye."

Rodney snorted. "Hell, yes. Pardon me, I've got someone to kill."

"Rodney!"

"They stuck my heart in an old tin can and shot it off a log, Teyla," John said earnestly.

Teyla seemed to catch on, because she gave them both a disgusted look and released her prisoner, pushing him back toward the village center. Ronon gave his a protracted shake, making the guy yelp woozily, before dropping him to the ground. 

"Let that be a lesson to you," Rodney said. 

"Yeah," John pointed a thumb. "What he said." 

They geared up and headed back toward the gate. 

"I will never understand the appeal of your Johnny Black," Teyla said. 

John just grinned. 

Rodney gave him a shove. "'What he said'? That's all you come up with?" 

"I didn't want to steal your moment."

"Hmm." Rodney considered this. "I was having a moment, wasn't I?"

"Too bad it's over," Ronon said, and bumped him heavily. Rodney almost tripped over John in his turn, and John put an arm around him to keep him on his feet.

"All right?"

"All right."

"Terrific." John gave him a pat and a grin and then strode off, leaving Rodney to mourn how quickly moments seemed to pass. One after another.

:::

There came a point when Rodney thought about those moments a little too much, until they strung together into little movies in his head, and eventually he found he was no longer moping about Jennifer at all anymore.

He was moping after John "Drop Kick Me, Jesus" Sheppard.

The last time Rodney'd had sex with his best friend had been in grad school, and it hadn't ended well. Pharnum had plagiarized his work on primordial preexisting nucleons for a German physics journal, thinking Rodney wouldn't find out about it. Idiot.

John was a different sort. Loyal to a painfully ridiculous degree. And much more attractive, frankly.

The question was, how to bring it up. It had been over a month now, and Rodney had noticed nothing in John's demeanor to suggest he was overly distraught at the delay or even impatient for Rodney to get on with it.

Maybe John had changed his mind about calling dibs.

Well, it was time for Rodney to make a move of his own.

:::

"What? What's with all the staring? Do I have grennach stuck in my teeth? I hate that." John took a sip of water and swished.

Rodney rolled his eyes. A more direct approach for the blockhead, perhaps. Direct, and yet subtle. Yes, Rodney knew just the thing.

::: 

The research was easy. Waiting for the necessary connection to Earth and the data transfer: frustrating beyond belief. 

He placed the mp3 on a flash drive and left it on John's desk without a note.

:::

The response was ridiculously fast. Flattering, really. Rodney barely had time to change his bed sheets before he was swiping open his door to find John standing there dressed in his civilian clothes. 

John waved the flash drive. "Hey." 

"Hi." Rodney was unaccountably nervous. He gestured John inside.

"So," John looked around as if he'd never seen Rodney's quarters before, then turned back and gave Rodney a half-grin. "'I Wish I Were a Woman (So I Could Go Out With a Guy Like Me).' Pretty subtle there, McKay."

Rodney cleared his throat. "Yes, well."

"Also, just a little off the mark, unless you're trying to tell me something."

"No, no." Rodney realized he was wringing his hands and made himself stop. 

John moved toward him until he was close, really close. At this distance, Rodney could smell him, clean and male and a tiny bit like Aqua Velva, although it seemed like John had made an effort to shower after he'd shaved, because he didn't smell strongly of it. Rodney smiled as he realized how hard John must have been trying for his sake. 

"Rodney," John said, and then he slid his hand around the back of Rodney's neck and pulled him in for a kiss. A real kiss this time, John's lips covering his and immediately forcing Rodney's mouth open, John's tongue sliding in and taking over Rodney's mouth. 

It was hot and dirty and just a little desperate, and Rodney grabbed John's shoulders, a bit overwhelmed. 

"You okay with this?" John said, pausing and pulling back. 

"It's...different." And it was, Rodney realized. John was different, acting differently, dressed differently. "Wait—all this past month you've been acting like you weren't even interested!"

John's eyebrows twisted engagingly. "You were dealing. With, you know, stuff." 

"So what?"

"So," John said. "I wouldn't do that. I'm not that kinda guy."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh. Can we go back to..."

"Yes, please," 

"Good," John said, and then he grabbed Rodney, and somehow Rodney was being steered toward his bed, but was still being kissed. God, John was good with the kissing, the stubble of his cheeks a suede-like rasp against Rodney's. John pulled away to start undressing, and Rodney tried to follow along but lost the use of his fingers while watching John unbutton his blue oxford shirt, his tanned skin being exposed inch by inch until John lost patience and just shrugged it off over his head. 

He paused afterward, shirt in his hands, and whined, "Rodney," effectively breaking Rodney's hypnosis.

"Right, right," Rodney said, and pulled off his own T-shirt, then started on his pants. He heard the jingle of John's belt, and shivered quietly. This was becoming all too real so quickly he scarcely had time to process what was happening, and then he was in nothing but his socks, and John's warm, calloused hands were on his shoulders, pushing him down onto his bed.

"'Bout time you caught up," John said.

That, Rodney supposed, could be taken any number of ways. He indicated his agreement by pulling John into a kiss, showing his own greediness by twining his legs around John's, and at the first press of John's bare cock against his he let out a muffled groan.

"Jesus fuck," John said, apparently agreeing with Rodney's assessment.

They shoved against each other for a bit, Rodney growing ever more frustrated at his lack of leverage, until John reared over him and leaned onto his left elbow. He licked his right palm, a wicked smile on his face, and then reached down to gather them up together in his hand.

Then he squeezed.

"Oh, yes, yes, all right—fantastic idea," Rodney babbled breathlessly. 

"I thought maybe, yeah," John said, and started rocking into his fist. He was looking down, and Rodney followed his eye line, then shoved a pillow beneath his neck so he could see better, because this was worth watching, their cocks moving together within John's fist, and John's belly brushing against them both as he leaned down to kiss Rodney again.

John squeezed as he pulled, and it felt even better than it looked. Then John leaned back again and started jerking his hand faster. His face was flushed, his neck bright red, and his eyes were gleaming down at Rodney as he pumped his fist. Finally he bit his lip on a gasp and let go of Rodney.

Rodney watched his face as he came. 

"Amazing," Rodney said, but John seemed oblivious. That, perhaps, was the most amazing thing of all, because Rodney had never seen Sheppard even the tiniest bit unaware of his surroundings. Rodney reached up and wordlessly ran his fingers through John's hair, as an experiment, really, to see if he could.

John just groaned and dropped his head onto Rodney's shoulder.

Remarkable.

"I'd like to come now, if you please," Rodney said, and John snorted a laugh into his skin. Then John dragged his lips down over Rodney's chest, down, down over his ticklish belly, where John's come was sticking, and proceeded to suck the head of Rodney's cock into his mouth.

"Oh, my God."

John's tongue swirled around and around the head of his cock, and then John's mouth inched down lower, coming up before going down again in a painfully good rhythm, while Rodney slowly lost his mind.

By the time John was tonguing the base of his shaft and swallowing, Rodney was hyperventilating. 

And then he came, and sparkling stars appeared behind his eyelids. Also, he might have praised John's holy name.

John was laughing softly and had a heavy arm settled over his waist by the time Rodney had recovered. 

"That was...spectacular."

"Well, you did say 'please.'"

Rodney cracked an eyelid and glared. "So this was your idea of positive reinforcement?"

"Yup. Pretty good, huh?"

"Well...on a scale from Randy Finkelstein, my youthful playmate, to Ashley Taylor, the physics groupie I met my summer at Cal Tech—"

John growled and rolled on top of Rodney to administer the first of what Rodney was horrified to discover was only the first of many "raspberries" on his person.

"Stop that!" Rodney smacked the top of his fuzzy head. "That's disgusting."

John twisted and smirked up at Rodney. "How is blowing raspberries more disgusting than a blowjob?"

"I don't...it just is."

"Uh-huh." John tossed himself onto his back and let out a long breath. And then he started to hum.

Rodney wasn't certain, but he had a feeling he knew this one. The dog didn't die in it, and the guy got to keep his truck. Rodney smiled.

"'Yeah, I'd sure like to check you for ticks,'" John sang softly.

Rodney hit him with a pillow.

 

_End._

_I'd like to see you out in the moonlight_  
 _I'd like to kiss you baby way back in the sticks_  
 _I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers_  
 _And I'd like to check you for ticks_  
 _Yeah, I'd sure like to check you for ticks._

—Brad Paisley

**Author's Note:**

> Other songs:  
> Roped and Thrown, by Unknown  
> Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Goodbye, by Waylon Jennings  
> How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away? by Dan Hicks  
> Still Miss You Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better, by Caroline Holder  
> Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart, by Mr. Johnny Cash  
> Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill, by Johnny Paycheck  
> I Wish I Were a Woman (So I Could Go Out With a Guy Like Me), by Unknown


End file.
